Machine will not boot to XP, safe mode, or last known cfg

Sheepdip

Student

Posts: 75

Loc: Castle Anthrax

3+ Months Ago

I have some friends in another state who I give free PC support to (they're in school and can't afford paying someone locally).

They have an IBM ThinkPad, XP Pro notebook computer that all-of-the-sudden stopped booting into Windows. It takes them to the screen that asks you to choose whether or not to boot into safe mode, last known good config, command prompt, etc. Unfortunately, they cannot boot into safe mode, or use anything on the menu (but maybe the command prompt - haven't tried that one).

I know that I've seen this before, but I thought that someone might have seen this recently, and could direct me to the solution. I seem to remember having to manually restore the registry using DOS, maybe?

Xel02

Proficient

Posts: 261

3+ Months Ago

What happens when you try going into one of those modes? Do you receive and error message or does it just reboot?

If you have some sort of bootdisk you should try that since it might help detect any hardware problems that have come up.

Good luck.

Sheepdip

Student

Posts: 75

Loc: Castle Anthrax

3+ Months Ago

When they select any of those options, it reboots and comes to the same message. I think that it is a corrupt registry, though I do not know of any errors indicating this. I'm going to walk them through the recovery process using the XP CD and hopefully that will resolve this.

roarmeow

Professor

Posts: 860

Loc: BKNY

3+ Months Ago

yeah yeah...
i think your best best is to do a repair windows install...
after that, rebuilding the boot situation on that windows install could work things out...
also, check out the cpu temp (in the bios) and see if it's running too hot... that could cause a reboot...

Sheepdip

Student

Posts: 75

Loc: Castle Anthrax

3+ Months Ago

We worked on this notebook this weekend (over the phone) and the laptop would not recognize the Windows XP CD (the one used to install this PC's OS). So not only is the system not allowing them to go past the "We're sorry for the inconvenience..." screen (where they can choose Safe Mode, Command Prompt, Last Known Good Config, etc.) but now it doesn't even allow them to use bootable CD's.

I can get into the BIOS, I disabled the BIOS from booting to the HD (setting the boot order to use the CD-ROM only -- just to see what would happen) and it said that no operating system was found. The BIOS sees the CD-ROM drive, so I'm going to have her check the XP CD on another PC to see if it is messed up. If anyone has seen this on another PC (caused by virus, spyware, etc.) let me know.

Foxy

Guru

Posts: 1036

Loc: places..

3+ Months Ago

IS it a Real copy of Windows?

Sheepdip

Student

Posts: 75

Loc: Castle Anthrax

3+ Months Ago

He he he - yes, it is.

sandman6471

Graduate

Posts: 187

Loc: In My Dreams

3+ Months Ago

It could be an "Unmountable boot volume". I've done two repairs like this one on windows xp pro and on xp home. You can download the program from microsoft, which when you run the program it makes six floppies that you use to run chkdsk and also repairs the boot.ini file. The boot.ini file is corrupted. Be sure you download the correct program because xp home is different from xp pro, one will not work on the other.

Hope this helps

Vladdrac

Mastermind

Posts: 2136

Loc: Louisville, Ky

3+ Months Ago

but even if the boot.ini file was corrupted, it should still be able to boot from the xp cd, right?

sandman6471

Graduate

Posts: 187

Loc: In My Dreams

3+ Months Ago

You would think so, but sometimes they don't. Hey, this is Microsoft so anything can happen.

Good Luck

jasyn

Born

Posts: 2

3+ Months Ago

*bump* .. i'm getting the same problems with my sisters computer. i can't even get the windows xp install disc to install .. once it says "Starting up Windows Setup" i get a blue screen. i've tried the 6 floopy disc setup that should go there and i get the error "File \bootinfo.ini could not be loaded. The error code is 4096." .. NEED HELP!!!!!

NaNoBoT

Graduate

Posts: 214

3+ Months Ago

This problem has happened to two of my friends this week and also to three or four people on another forum i use, all of which are using pirated versions of Windows XP Pro.

*Interesting*

None of which have found a fix at present.

jasyn

Born

Posts: 2

3+ Months Ago

could u post up that forum where the others are having the same problem.

NaNoBoT

Graduate

Posts: 214

3+ Months Ago

To fix this problem boot from the Windows installation disk, press R to repair.

Now from the command line repair the boot volume and restart, all should be fine.

Skirge

Professor

Posts: 774

Loc: nashua nh

3+ Months Ago

hey this happend to me 2 days ago its when i tried to screw with the boot skins all i had to do was reset cmos and everything worked i tried the last known CFG and safe mode but it auto restarts

then it goes straight to the BSOD ( Blue screen of death )
and it tells u to repair it but i just reset cmos and everything came back

try that it takes 2 seconds and its not that hard

tchennoth

Born

Posts: 1

3+ Months Ago

I have a dual operating system and face the exact same problem as mentioned in this thread. The only dofference is I can run win 98SE but not windows xp. I don't know why. This happened ever since I changed the system configuration utility in win Xp pro to run in safe mode.

Ever since, the system reboots when I choose win xp professional but this does not happen with windows SE.

How do I fix this problem?

widowmaker678

Born

Posts: 1

3+ Months Ago

Hey, i am having this problem as well but on a custom built gaming pc. i will get to the xp screen and it will start loading and then it will just stop and freeze up at the point it was at. very rarley it will break through and keep going but like i said very rarely it will. if anyone can help it would mean a lot.

PopEye1

Born

Posts: 2

3+ Months Ago

Two of my neighbors experienced this same problem in the last two days...unable to boot to desktop. System stays in a loop. One took cpu to repair shop and the other is waiting to see what I come up with. I'm pretty much a novice compared to you folks....any help/ideas would be appreciated.

Merlyn

Guru

Posts: 1143

Loc: Oregon

3+ Months Ago

My suggestion when something like this happens, and a windows repair or system recovery doesn't work, is to format your hard drive, or to go back to a previous ghost image.

PopEye1

Born

Posts: 2

3+ Months Ago

The problem is the system continues to cycle through the loop of attempting to boot to XP, then gives you the three options of Safe Mode, Last Known Cfg, command prompt. No matter what you select of the three
choices, the recycle starts over and just continues until you do a hard power down. Can't get to a point to do a sys restore. One of the two computers involved here is brand new. Owner took back to where purchased...will be interesting to see what they come up with. I appreciate your input!

grinch2171

Moderator

Posts: 6813

Loc: Martinsburg, WV

3+ Months Ago

Try this
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

lindsey

Born

Posts: 1

3+ Months Ago

Hi I've read through this thread and just had the unfortunate experience of this, this morning and I need some help...

Computer was running normally, but slow, so I decided to restart. Restarted from the start bar. Computer shut down normally, than when it started to reboot it just keeps looping through the boot as the others have mentioned. All the options just cause the coputer to reboot over and over again. It gets as far as the windows load screen and immediately reboots.

Now, I bought my computer at tigerdirect.com which I have regretted since the day I bought it. I have NO Windows CD for my computer. When I called tigerdirect they said they do not give customers the CD... (why did I pay for Windows then?) So I am stuck. I can't boot from the CD because I don't have the appropiate CD.

I do have a few other XP CDs from my laptop, but I don't think they will install correctly. I tried using on CD I had and doing the repair install thing, but when it tells me to choose a partition it only says I have one drive D:/Windows. When in fact I have two partitions C:/ (for XP) and O:/ (for Vista).

Also when I run the repair thing, and try to even do it with the D:/ drive it asks for an Admin password - but I don't have one, never set it up.

I'm going nuts. I wouldn't mind just reinstalling the whole damn thing, but I have pictures of my kids and family on there I want off, as well as about a months worth of work. (I am a web designer so my frustration level i EXTREMELY high as I'll be losing tons of stuff here).

Basically I don't know what to do. I would love just to copy the stuff I already have onto some other form of media, but I can't... I can't even log onto the Vista partition as that is corrupted and asking for the Vista install disk.

I'm going nuts!

I tried to call the computer's manufacturer's tech support, but they charge 39.95 every 30 minutes. An I can't afford that at all!

Krog

Born

Posts: 1

3+ Months Ago

Don't you just hate when you search and find a bunch of people having the same problem but nobody has a solution? Yeah me too. Advice to format my computer just does not soothe me whatsoever.

I've been having one of those days where everything I touch turns to garbage. I came home after 4 days away and turned on my computer, only to see it get to the Windows XP splash screen for a few seconds and then reboot. Attempts to access Safe Mode provided similar results.

You know I've seen this kind of problem a few times before. Either the system will come to a grinding halt with some kind of stop error, or else it will complain about some valuable system file being inaccessible. I find this is a problem with a corrupt registry. I wish that on the "Sorry you system crashed last go around do you want to try Last Known Good Config?" message that you could initiate a disk scan. That would have been a good idea.

Anyway, I have been able to fix this on occasion by booting up with the Windows XP install disk and going into the (R)ecovery console. From here you can do a CHKDSK command. Do a 'help chkdsk' to check the syntax yourself but I think it's something like 'chkdsk c: /r'

Now the problem I'm having is that on my computer at home I have a striped SATA array, and the Windows XP Installation disk is not recognizing it as a conventional drive so I can't check it this way. I wonder how you initiate a disk scan when you have no access to your system like this. My hard drive is still readable, I can see all my files using the Active Boot Disk at http://www.ntfs.com

grinch2171

Moderator

Posts: 6813

Loc: Martinsburg, WV

3+ Months Ago

You are going to have to obtain your SATA RAID drivers and put them on a floppy (hopefully your machine has a floppy drive).

Boot the XP CD and at the bottom it mentions pressing F6 to install SCSI/RAID drivers do so and follow the onscreen instructions. This will load the drivers so the XP disk will recognize your Array.

Worth a shot anyway.

priyanka

Born

Posts: 2

3+ Months Ago

if you are getting the blue screen error while installing the XP after the set up.. go into bios and turn off the RAID ON to RAID/Autodetect or Raid/Autoahci... (under SATA operation).. Also, disable integrated NIC and audio and the media card reader .. and then try to boot... and install.. it has to work..

filibertord

Born

Posts: 1

3+ Months Ago

I read about a worm that does this is called SASSER

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasser_worm

realizenow

Born

Posts: 1

3+ Months Ago

Solution to XP pro not starting up / not booting in any way
My XP Pro HP notebook computer was restarting over and over and the machine was unable to boot normally or in any option such as safe mode, safe mode with networking etc. It would show the XP Pro splash screen and then recycle again over and over.

After spending hours and hours wasting my time with microsoft and HP...the only solutions offered were to repair/format reinstall XP and loose all 12 gigs of data under my documents (which is really stupid that they delete them during a repair...now I will move data files to base drive) which was not an option for me even though I had a back up from a week ago. So I ran XP pro CD again on my own after being completely pissed off knowing there had to be some DOS command I could use to restore XP and selected Restore option. When it wanted me to select a drive to do a repair on instead I got to c: base directory and ran the following dos command:

Chkdsk c: /p /r this command checks the specified drive and repairs or recovers the drive if the drive requires it. The Command also marks any bad sectors and it recovers readable information. Thank goodness I grew up using DOS.

After doing this it corrected the bad files on the hard drive and the computer started right up and immediately went into checking file system again with errors. After it finished the computer ran perfectly.

ALL THESE IDIOT PEOPLE THAT CALL THEMSELVES TECHS do not know anything. All they know is what is in their database...they are slow talking database searchers.

I just wanted to share my solution because I wasted so much time and I kept asking these brainless support people for some utility to access instead of using the entire repair/installation part of the disk and loosing my entire computer, data, setting etc that would have taken 2 weeks to get back the way it was.

colorado

Born

Posts: 1

3+ Months Ago

I have a 5 year old dell computer that will not boot.

I have read the "realizenow" comment but I do not have an XP Pro CD? What do I do?

orchidmysts

Born

Posts: 4

3+ Months Ago

i get the blue screen of death telling me my comp is corrupt or no device etc..and when I try to go into safe mode or last known etc it takes me to the black screen and shows all my files folders indexedand i cant get past that til i f10 then it takes me to safemode and tells me win xp cannot log into safemode..WTF??? help

bluec

Born

Posts: 1

3+ Months Ago

Hey,

I got this same problem on my IBM Thinkpad Z61m.

But it got resolved, When i went into BIOS(press F1 while booting to goto bios)......and changed the Hard Disk property to Compatability mode. Save and restart.